Volume II Part 27 (1/2)

[250] In later years Miss Nightingale was not quite so strict as for such favours

[251] See above, p 75

[252] Miss Nightingale's signature was ”subject to the addition of a request that an independent inquiry be at the same time set on foot at the several stations in India as recommended by the Governor-General in Council on Nov 4, 1896”

Study of the facts, forethought, good ads which constantly occupied Miss Nightingale's mind in relation to s which had been indelibly impressed upon her by the Cri Mr Kiralfy bethought himself of a Victorian Era Exhibition, in which one section should be devoted to Nursing Great ladies took up the idea, and Miss Nightingale was besieged froraphs, busts, autographs, and ”relics of the Criale at the first attack was in hervein ”Oh the absurdity of people,” she wrote, ”and the vulgarity! The 'relics,' the 'representations' of the Crimean War! What are they? They are, first, the tremendous lessons we have had to learn fronorances And next they are Trained Nurses and the progress of Hygiene These are the 'representations' of the Criiveelse as 'relics' of the Crie even of the victuals inside a public-house by the sign outside I won't be n_ at an Exhibition Think of Sidney Herbert's splendid Royal Coress in the British Army!

Think of the unwearied toil of the Sanitarians! And you ask raph of a rat! and at thedelivered her ale let her heart be persuaded Lady Wantage, whom she held in affectionate admiration, climbed the stairs in South Street to press the suit in person, and Miss Nightingale surrendered ”Lady Wantage was so char,” she wrote, half-ashamed of the surrender, ”and she wouldn't 'take' when I went off upon Royal Coenus oracious and she is such a very good woale” was lent, and her old ”Criht down from a loft in the country, was patched up to serve as a ”relic” A distinguished writer (but he was a hurinder on his knees before a shop- in St Martin's Lane, having taken a dentist's showcase for relics of the saints That was perhaps pushi+ng things a little far; but ”hope in the hear to love,” said one of Miss Nightingale's friends in supporting Lady Wantage's petition, ”and one cannot love Royal Commissions” The Crimean relic served At the Exhibition an old soldier was seen to go up to the carriage and kiss it

The bust was also bedecked ”Now I ale to her cousin Louis (Oct 16, 1897), when the Exhibition was to be closed, ”about reat many bad words, not fit to put on paper I also utter a pious wish that the bust may be smashed) I should not have remembered it, but that I am told somebody came every day to dress it with fresh flowers I utter a pious wish that that person may be saved You (for I know not what sins), it appears, are my 'man of business' What _is_ to be done about that bust?” Miss Nightingale's private meditations were the arded as a iving thanks to God ”How inefficient I was in the Cri froale'sthese years On Waterloo Day, 1898, shenote:--

What an adround for the battle--he, not the ene forced theround _he_ chose, he, who had no staff fit to help hi hiround he had chosen for it the next day; the ammunition each would require was conveyed to it under _his own_ orders (how many a battle has been lost froency Nothing was neglected, nothing lost, nothing failed And so he delivered Europe froenius the world has seen How different was the Duke froentlelan was told in a letter by a chance Doctor, a volunteer, a civilian, a man whom nobody had ever heard of, that if the men were not better hutted, better fed, better clothed, in a feeeks he would have no arlan rode down at once alone with the exception of a single Orderly, and got off his horse and went into his informant's tent and said, ”You know I could try you by Court Martial for this letter” He answered, ”My Lord, that is just what I want Then the truth will conifies what becomes of me? But will you ride round first alone just as you are now at once and see whether what I have said is true?” Lord Raglan did so, and found that it ithin the truth

And so the Ar of scurvy from salt meat; but the shores of the Euxine were croith cattle

The outbreak of war in South Africa led her thoughts to another interest which had much occupied her at Scutari--the better employment of the soldier in peace:--

”London is full,” she noted (October 1899), ”of rumours of ith the Boers I cannot say these ruhtful in my ears Few men and feomen have seen so much of the horrors of war as I have Yet I cannot say that war seeated evil

The soldier in war is a _ his life for his comrade, his country, his God I cannot bear to say: Compare him with the soldier in peace in barracks; for you will say, Then would you always have war? Well, I have nothing to do with theof war or peace I can only say that you must see the man in war to knohat he is capable of If you drive past a barrack, you will see two heads idling and lolling out of everyAnd the only creature who is doing anything is the dog who is carrying victuals to his ho has puppies And the moral is: Provide the soldier with active employment”

IV

She was unable to take any active part in connection with sending out nurses to South Africa; though many inquiries were addressed to her, and many nurses wrote to her from the scene of war To the ”Scottish Hospital in South Africa,” she contributed 100--a gift which was partly inspired by affection for her ”grateful and loving child,” Miss Spencer, h Infirhtingale's interest in the work of her old pupils all over the country, in the education of her Probationers at St Thoeneral, was unabated during the closing years of the century The ”Nurses' Battle” about registration was still active, and from time to time she was appealed to for aid In 1895 certain overtures were ive them a buster?” She chose the latter course A little later, one of her allies was thought to be weakening ”I did entleness for which I a reat presence of ered by Princesses” She was hard at work, too, with advising on appointments There was one part of the world, however--Buenos Ayres--of which Miss Nightingale began to wash her hands ”Of the last party, all wereout any more?” At home there were ”four successors wanted,” she wrote (1896), ”and four staffs howling” A n: ”I had two letters and four telegrams from her on Tuesday and other days in proportion” The volu 1896-97 is, indeed, as great as at any previous tiular visits fro over a mass of Sisters' Records, Probationers' exa had the pleasure of many afternoons with Probationers and ex-Probationers,” she found ”much cause for thankfulness” in her School; but ”as we are always trying to ress,” she went on to propose to her Council a series of detailed suggestions for refor Lord and Lady Monteagle in aof nurses for Irish Workhouses Her affectionate concern in her nursing friends was constant In the year of the Jubilee (1897) Queen Victoria invited her to coham Palace to witness the procession She was unable to leave her room, but she remembered the nurses and purchased a nu them She was deeply interested in a nurse who volunteered for plague-service in India: ”The deepest, quietest,person I have seen from our present staff, and so pretty Not enthusiastic except in the good old original sense: God in us She is firue” After a series of intervieith nurses and letters froale noted some impressions of types She valued efficiency, but she deplored a tendency which she detected to substitute professionalisels”?

she asked ”The Angels are _not_ they who go about scattering flowers: any naughty child would like to do that, even any rascal The Angels are they who, like Nurse or Ward- injury to health or obstacles to recovery, e patients, etc, for all of which they receive no thanks These are the Angels They speak kind words too, and give sy as if her heart would break, with apron over her head, because a poor little peevish thing who has never given her anything but trouble is dead--is an Angel; while the nurse who coolly walks down a Ward noting how many children are dead ere alive when she last hts Miss Nightingale had a constant sympathizer in the Grand duchess of Baden, rote to her year by year, in ter--reports which told of professional iht, of soh ideal The Eale from year to year, and their talk was very sympathetic

Of her allies at home, Mr Bonhaale School but in the ement of her private affairs Mr Rathbone retained to the last his devotion to her as the founder of”To have been allowed,” he wrote (Dec 27, 1897), ”to ith your inspiration and wise counsels for reat work is a thing I arateful for I remain while life lasts your devoted friend, and in effort at least your faithful servant” ”From the confinement of your room,” he added, ”you have done more to spread reform than you could have done with the th” That was not the opinion of Miss Nightingale; she could only direct or advise; she had for many years been forced to leave action to others The sense of this disability did not grow less, but as years passed, it was felt to be the common lot of the old She was not well pleased with all that she saw, but she was, of necessity and by discipline of character, less iard with affectionate tolerance a wedding in her family of nurses To one ”child” she sent a present ”With the very best h sorry to lose you Coe many years before she had resented as ”desertion” She saw much around her to criticize, but she was content to uphold her own ideals and her criticisms became less censorious ”Remember,” she said to herself in her meditations, ”God is not my Private Secretary” As old friends disappeared, she looked the eneration Sir Robert Rawlinson, who for more than forty years had corresponded with her on sanitary affairs, died in 1898; Sir Douglas Galton, in 1899; Mr Rathbone, in 1902[253]

She was anxious that Sir Douglas Galton's services should be rightly appreciated in the press, and took some measures to that end ”The man e have lost,” she wrote privately (March 12, 1899), ”Sir Douglas Galton, was the first Royal Engineer who put any _sanitary_ work into R

Engineering The head of these ineers, himself said to es--we have nothing to do with health and that kind of Doctor's work,' or words to that effect Sir D G opened his own ears and his heart and hisin his profession” ”One does feel,” she had written on All Souls' Day, 1896, ”the passing away of so many who seemed essential to the world I have no one nohoone But all the er to see successors What is that verse--that the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the hters) of God And I am thankful for the htingale's tribute to his htingale's powers failed For the last fifteen years of her life she seldom left her rooust 1891 The property there was sold in 1896, ”and I don't like being turned out of Hampshi+re,” she said Her last visit to Claydon was in 1894-95 To Lea Hurst, which had been let for 10 years in 1883, she never went after her h she retained her interest in local affairs there to the end Already in 1887 she had talked of herself as ”almost blind”; and in 1895, in a note of symptoms about which to ask her doctor, she had included ”want of memory” The loss at first was only of dates and naht, which had troubled her for so series of pencilled h there was still much self-condemnation, there was more of peace and hope ”Noveo arrival at Scutari The is of my heart accomplished--and non to Thee by difficulties and disappoint to her eyesight being the first aeneral state failed all at once Miss Nightingale's handwriting, of which a facsiiven, was very characteristic: clear, bold, and careful She was possessed with the idea of doing everything that she undertook as perfectly as pains could enable her In her handwriting every letter is well forraphs, insets, and intervals are arranged carefully to help the reader to the sense; yet all is done with an air of freedo about the script; the distinctive fornature ine, have ever written so ale did with her own hand, and the writing never deteriorated Some of her best friends and helpers--Sidney Herbert, for instance, and Douglas Galton--wrote, when hurried, the worst hands; and she would often pencil, over their almost indecipherable scrawls, a fair copy of what she conjectured the words to be Many of her own letters were in pencil, for she wrote much in bed; but she used a particular brand--procured by her friend Mr Frederick, of the War Office--hard, and not easily delible, and her handwriting is as good in pencil as with the pen There were some variations in its alloped across the page tossing its e, it was extremely careful The very latest exaht quaver in the lines; the for are as exact as ever Then the sight failed, and the writing almost ceased

From about 1901 or 1902 onwards she could neither read nor write except with the greatest difficulty There were no longer papers on the bed

The hands were quiet Her eyes rested on her friends with evenclearness In 1902 Miss Nightingale was persuaded to accept the services of a co to be married, was succeeded in 1904 by Miss Elizabeth Bosanquet Soreed that the post should be called that of ”lady housekeeper” In reality it was that of private secretary, with large initiative Miss Nightingale did not easily yield to her infirmities; she concealed them, too, so cleverly as sometimes to mislead visitors, who took a kindly ”yes, dear” to express more intellectual apprehension and assent than really lay behind it Lord Kitchener, who paid her a visit, remarked to Miss Cochrane after the intervie closely Miss Nightingale in her old age folloas going on; but she had known that Lord Kitchener was co Miss Cochrane fully and i on her ownFor some years she liked to feel that she was still in the movement of the world, and to have the daily newspaper read to her--thus sube to an exercise which had caused her _, written nearly half a century before, proved true in soh not in others She was indifferent to some of her ospel of the openBut what she had observed in sickroonized as true by those in attendance upon her So long as she could see at all, she greatly loved to have flowers about her Then, again, she had written that what those like who are past the power of action theood practical action by others” And that hat she found in her old age She liked to have biographies read to her, and essays which recounted or coes in Mr Roosevelt's _Strenuous Life_, and would signify approval by rapping energetically on the table beside her For several years her bodily strength ell maintained, and she suffered little, except from occasional rheumatis herself to believe that she needed care She did not take kindly to the introduction of a nurse The ruling passion of her life was strong; and when the nurse had tucked her up for the night, she would often reverse the parts, get out of bed and go into the adjoining room to tuck up the nurse She could not realize that her secretary lived with her night and day; and when good-night was said, she would reply, ”And now,home? do let me send for a cab” Her voice still retained its quality In extree she used to recite Milton and Shelley and pieces of Italian and French in rich, full tones Soay voice, a snatch of an Italian song Her voice seemed, says one as much with her, to fill the roo helped in dressing, and I was summoned from the bottom to the top of the house by splendid easy shouts” But there was only occasional revolt The abiding i kindness and consideration

She still received many visitors, in addition to her cousins and other kinsfolk A old friends, Miss Paulina Irby saw her the er, to whohtingale liked best those visitors who had an abundant flow of vigorous talk A pause in the conversation, which shea new topic, was a strain to her The visits which tired her least were those of Matrons and nursing Sisters She loved to hear of their work, their patients, and especially of suggestions theyfriends paused in the talk to ask, ”But aale quickly, ”you give e on her own part was now beyond her Of the est retained the power of apprehending were froht, andhonours of her life (as the world counts the Edrote with ”nition of invaluable services to the country and to humanity” A suitable reply was fralas Dawson, on the King's behalf, brought the Order--then for the first tiale understood that some kindness had been done to her, but hardly more ”Too kind, too kind,” she said On March 16, 1908, the Freedom of the City of London was conferred upon her--hitherto conferred on only one woreat difficulty to sign from her bed her initials upon the City's roll of honour, but it is doubtful if she understood what she was being asked to sign Perhaps it was better so In the years of her strength she had ever a dread and aof the world's praises In the days of her weakness, when power of work in this world had gone froarded such honours, had she understood thelory-crown but the opportunity of doing New Work